Gene Baur

March 19, 2012

We grow up bombarded with the false idea that consuming meat is necessary to promote strength and athletic endurance, but there are more and more vegan athletes proving that we can perform exceptionally well eating a plant-based diet. Some have even commented that they heal faster and feel better after cutting meat, eggs, and dairy from their diet. I wanted to personally demonstrate how well vegan food supports athletic feats, so I signed up to run my first marathon, which was completed just this past weekend on St. Patrick’s Day in Washington, DC.

While training for the marathon, I completed two 20-mile runs but had never run a full 26 miles, so I was a bit anxious and concerned as race day approached. I‘d heard for years about “hitting the wall,” that point when your body runs out of energy after running 20-plus miles. I hoped I would I have the mental toughness to continue running through that pain.

The week before the marathon, I consumed lots of nutrient-dense green smoothies (which I make with bananas, blueberries, flax meal, kale, spinach, and nondairy milk), along with other healthy plant foods. I wanted to store as much energy in my body as possible to get me through the race. I checked the weather forecast, and the temperature on the day of the race was projected to be in the 70s, which is very warm for March. With warm temperatures, I would need to stay properly hydrated for the 26.2-mile course.

On race day, I had a breakfast of oatmeal, nuts, and bananas, then rode a very crowded metro to the race location. Packed in tightly with other travelers on the train, I was reminded of how farm animals are crowded on factory farms and in transportation trailers.

When the marathon started, I settled in with the 3:30-pace group, hoping I would be able to maintain that pace over the 26-mile course. I guessed that I would finish the race in somewhere between three-and-a-half and four hours and didn’t want to push myself too hard too soon. I was warned by several marathon veterans that running too fast during the first part of the race causes runners to break down during the last five or six miles.

We ran along the national mall and wound our way through the streets of our nation’s capital with well-wishers and musical performers cheering along the way. I felt comfortable keeping up with the 3:30-pace group for most of the race, stopping to drink at every water and Gatorade station to stay hydrated. Then, around mile 18, I decided to speed up, hoping I could finish the race strong. During the last eight miles of the race, I had moments when my legs felt heavy and my joints ached, but I kept going. I remembered my training and the nutrient-rich foods fueling my body, and I also took heart from the vegan organization I was representing. As I approached the finish line wearing my Farm Sanctuary t-shirt, I sprinted and completed the race with a respectable time of 3:28:03. On Sunday, I learned that time qualified me for the Boston Marathon!

As numerous runners have expressed over the years, finishing a marathon is a very satisfying accomplishment. It can be even sweeter and more satisfying when a cause that is bigger than oneself provides the inspiration. For me, that cause is going the distance for farm animals and joining an ever-growing group of athletes who are thriving on a vegan diet. I’m already eager to get running again!

March 09, 2012

I have always enjoyed sports and the exhilaration that accompanies the human drama of athletic competition. I grew up playing Little League baseball and Pop Warner football. In high school and college, I started running cross-country and playing Ultimate Frisbee. After founding Farm Sanctuary in 1986 and becoming a full-time activist, I spent less time pursuing athletics. But, as my 50th birthday approaches, I’ve renewed my interest in sports, and I want to demonstrate that vegans can perform significant athletic feats. So, I signed up to run in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon in Washington, DC, on March 17.

In the U.S., we are bombarded with advertising and “educational” campaigns promoting the notion that consuming meat, milk, and eggs is healthy, even necessary. Many people believe these myths and assume that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to be vegan, let alone to be a vegan athlete. But, in recent years, information about vegan living and athletic achievements fueled entirely by plant foods is better and more readily available.

Olympic Gold Medalist Carl Lewis reports performing his best as a vegan, and Dave Scott won the grueling Ironman Triathlon six times as a vegan (the Ironman is an endurance race where competitors swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, and then run a full marathon). Timothy Bradley, an undefeated vegan boxer, is challenging champion Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas this June, and Scott Jurek, a vegan ultra-marathon runner, is the seven-time winner of the 100-mile Western States Endurance Run. Elite and professional athletes are increasingly recognizing how plant-based nutrition can support top performance.

I am not an elite athlete, but I have been running over the winter getting ready for my first marathon this spring, and I’ve completed a couple of 20-mile runs. These long-distance outings have been challenging, but I’m feeling strong, and I’m looking forward to the marathon on March 17. I am now running fewer miles each week (“tapering” as it’s called in marathon training lingo), so that my body is rested and ready to run 26.2 miles on race day.

I’d like to use this marathon to help raise awareness and funds for Farm Sanctuary, as well as to encourage others to eat well and to pursue healthy, active lifestyles. We have set up a web page, and I hope you will consider sponsoring me.

November 11, 2011

Late last month, hundreds of activists, academics, farmers, and business and nonprofit leaders met near Washington, DC. for the first-ever National Conference to End Factory Farming. There, they examined the personal and community health threats, environmental destruction, and animal suffering caused by industrial animal production. Presenters and attendees also ardently discussed solutions to these issues, building on momentum from around the country that has led more and more people to seek a healthier, more just and sustainable food production system.

The vegans, vegetarians, flexitarians, and omnivores in attendance came bearing different philosophies but the same goal: to end factory farming. I am a long-time advocate of vegan living who is confronted by the fact that animals will likely be exploited for human food for some time to come. I realize that, as we work for a more complete solution to animal agriculture, it is also important to lessen animals’ suffering and to mitigate the environmental and human health costs associated with industrialized animal production.

Factory farming is entrenched and ubiquitous; most consumers unwittingly support it. Challenging agribusiness, whether through incremental reforms or through a more fundamental approach, shines a light on this system’s many abuses, making it more accountable before the public. Educating the public is also important. Our government should stop supporting and subsidizing the industrialized production and mass distribution of meat, milk and eggs, and consumers need to become more enlightened about these food choices. Citizens can engage more with the political process by reaching out to our elected representatives. When we do so in increasing numbers, it will become more difficult and expensive for the factory farming industry to continue behaving so irresponsibly. We also need to shift toward valuing healthier meals and kindhearted traditions, eating more plant foods and fewer animal foods. This personal shift alone could help eliminate as much as 70 to 80 percent of our health care costs, by some estimates, while preventing untold animal suffering and environmental harm. When consumers vote with our dollars (and sense), buying healthy, whole plant foods grown by responsible farmers, agribusiness will make adjustments to meet market demands.

Ending factory farming will continue to require that individuals and organizations with aligned interests seek common ground and work together in a collegial environment, as we began to do at last month’s conference. Whether among rural or urban, vegan or non-vegan, collaboration will bring contrasting opinions and perspectives to bear on the issues. Our differences are minor in comparison to our similarities, and should not distract us from achieving a common goal: To end factory farming.

September 21, 2011

In her book, “Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows,” social scientist Dr. Melanie Joy introduces us to a very important idea, a social construct, which she calls carnism. Carnism is a belief system that supports the idea that it is normal, natural, and necessary for human beings to consume the flesh of other animals. By naming and defining carnism, which has been both invisible and ubiquitous in our culture, Joy makes a significant and timely contribution to the efforts of animal rights and vegan advocates, and to our society at large.

In carnistic societies, eating animals is taken as a given, a necessary part of who we are. As Joy points out, however, it is actually something people choose to do (though they are unaware that they are even making a choice). Eating animals is an option, not a requirement, and it comes with serious ethical implications.

Exploiting and killing animals for food is inherently violent and inconsistent with our natural empathic tendencies, so we have developed social and psychological mechanisms to maintain our meat-eating habit. We have become largely disconnected from the painful reality of exploitation and slaughter, keeping it out of sight and out of mind. In the rare instances when we are forced to confront our subjection of billions of animals each year to unnecessary suffering, we fall back on the human brain’s great capacity for rationalization. We have come up with good reasons to do bad things for thousands of years. The techniques we use to excuse the eating of meat are the same we have used to justify other violent institutions and prejudices throughout human history.

In discussions about food, vegan advocates often find ourselves defending our choice not to consume animal products, as though that decision is an aberration we need to explain. A discussion of carnism, however, emphasizes that the habit of animal consumption is itself a social construct. Reframing the meat-eating debate in this way is akin to shifting from focusing on “feminists” or “civil rights activists” to discussing sexist or racist institutions and the social systems that bolster them. As with sexism and racism, carnism is an ideology that supports violence and injustice.

Humans are social animals, and we learn behaviors, including how and whom we eat, from those around us. In carnistic societies, members unwittingly support businesses that engage in systemic cruelties and conspire to look the other way. But humans are also hardwired to feel empathy. The concept of carnism is a useful tool to understand and deconstruct a dominant institution that stifles our innate compassionate impulses.

September 13, 2011

When Hurricane Irene threatened the East Coast of the U.S. in August, residents scrambled to prepare for its destruction. Though the storm left damage in its wake, including the deaths of 16,000 chickens who drowned at a Delaware farm and the loss of dozens of dairy cows who died in New York and Vermont, losses were less than expected. That was good news not only for people but also for animals – including farm animals, whose suffering and deaths during disasters are typically ignored by the media.

When Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, farm animals were the hurricane’s largest population of victims. More than six million farm animals, mainly chickens, perished in that disaster. The few news stories that addressed this massive loss of life focused mostly on the marketplace and what the industry would consider “insignificant” financial losses that resulted from the storm. The animals – except for the thousand or so rescued by animal protection groups, including 700 chickens who came to live at Farm Sanctuary – were seen largely as economic units, not as feeling creatures. It is tragic that so many animals died and shameful that their deaths went unnoticed by the public.

Natural disasters force us to confront our own vulnerability. When disasters approach, some areas may be evacuated, but all of us are at nature’s mercy. Imagine what it’s like for farm animals, who are constantly at our mercy. Hurricane Irene’s fury diminished as she came ashore, but the brutality of the factory farming system grinds on unrelentingly. The animals are under our control from conception to consumption, never to be reprieved.

Natural disasters strike from time to time, yet manmade disasters continue daily. These are the disasters we can prevent. We can choose to boycott the products of factory farming and to purchase plant foods instead. Hurricane Irene reminded us of how helpless we humans sometimes are, but we must also remember how powerful even our smallest choices can be.

August 08, 2011

Over the course of Farm Sanctuary’s 25 year history, we have organized an annual Walk for Farm Animals. It has been a cornerstone event, mobilizing citizens and raising awareness and funding for our vital work. This year, we are ramping up the effort, and it’s going to be the largest Walk for Farm Animals effort to date. Between September 10 and November 6, thousands of concerned citizens will join together in communities across the United States. There will be Walk for Farm Animals events in dozens of cities, from New York to California, and there is also a virtual event called the “Sleep In for Farm Animals” for those unable to attend a Walk event in person.

The Walk for Farm Animals provides a great opportunity to engage your family, friends and others in discussions about a critically relevant but often ignored topic: the largely hidden suffering of more than nine billion farm animals in the U.S. (that number doesn’t even include fish, who now make up the vast majority of animals killed for their flesh in the U.S.). Numerous public opinion polls have shown that citizens overwhelmingly believe that farm animals, like all animals, deserve to be protected from cruelty. But inhumane practices have become common on today’s factory farms, and most citizens unwittingly support them by consuming meat, milk and eggs. It doesn’t have to be this way.

The Walk for Farm Animals invites people to think about farm animals, raises awareness about who these animals are, and urges people to explore the profound consequences of our food choices. Ultimately, the Walk for Farm Animals, like other Farm Sanctuary activities, encourages us to live by our better natures.

It is inspiring and empowering to join with like-minded people for a common cause. I am looking forward to participating in several walks around the country, and I hope you will get involved too. Register today at walkforfarmanimals.org.

July 25, 2011

Like most people in the United States, I grew up eating meat, milk and eggs, and believing that it was healthy to do so. I didn’t make a conscious choice to eat animal foods – I just adopted the habit from my parents and from everyone else around me without thinking very much about it. Had I been exposed to the benefits of plant-based eating earlier, I certainly would have consumed far fewer animal products.

I don’t begrudge my parents for raising and feeding me the way they did. They believed these foods were good for my siblings and me. They believed, as many parents still do, that meat, milk, and eggs are a necessary part of the human diet. In her excellent book, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows, Melanie Joy describes a social construction she calls “carnism,” whereby the consumption of animal flesh and the violence of animal exploitation and slaughter are normalized and institutionalized. These habits and beliefs begin to take hold when we are children.

Thankfully, there are resources and a number of youth programs now available to teach children critical thinking skills and the benefits of eating plants instead of animals. I recently had the opportunity to visit Terra Summer, a camp for kids between the ages of 11 and 14 where food is used to teach math, history, geography, and other topics. The vegetarian camp introduces young people to the benefits of plant-based eating and also teaches cooking and food preparation skills. The day I visited, the students created five different kinds of veggie burgers. All were delicious!

It was wonderful to see this generation learning about the importance of conscientious eating and the profound impact of our food choices. Our individual and collective wellbeing, as well as the future of other animals and our planet, are directly influenced by what we eat and how it is produced.

June 30, 2011

The agents of modern animal agriculture have a talent for obfuscation. The miseries of confined animals are hidden within dim barracks and their brutal deaths behind the blank walls of slaughterhouses. Cheerful packaging and advertisements, bucolic brand names, and labels such as “organic,” “natural” and “humane” obscure the grim, mechanical and perverse methods of an industry that runs on the exploitation of sentient creatures. When activists attempt to reveal these practices to the public through documentation, the industry defends its secrecy by seeking to criminalize such revelations (see our action alert on the country’s latest “ag-gag” bill). And when the use of its harshest instruments is threatened by the prospect of legislative reform, the industry does its best to confound that progress by muddling prospective laws.

Factory farming interests are at it again in Oregon and Washington, where coalitions of animal welfare, food safety and environmental groups, along with concerned citizens, are now grappling against entrenched industry powers over the fate of the two states’ nearly 8.5 million egg-laying hens.

In an April Making Hay post, I told you about our efforts to give the voters of Washington and Oregon a say over the treatment of hens in their states. In both cases, producers have responded by exerting their influence over the legislative process.

In Washington, agribusiness lobbied for SB 5487, which was signed into law by Governor Christine Gregoire on May 11. This measure extends illusory reform while codifying inhumane practices by requiring that egg-laying hen operations meet the certification standards of the United Egg Producers, an industry group that promotes intensive confinement. The new measure mandates a very minor increase in cage size and allows producers until 2026 to comply with even that meager change. Meanwhile in Oregon, S.B. 805, which at the beginning of the current session promised real reform, has been crippled by amendment after amendment. Now it too promises to provide a veneer of legitimacy while allowing rank mistreatment to continue, barely altered, beneath it.

This manipulation is an affront not only to those concerned with animal welfare but also to those concerned with the integrity of our legislative process. I am heartened to see coalitions in Washington and Oregon coming together to challenge the factory farming industry through citizens’ initiatives. Volunteers are hard at work collecting the signatures needed to put battery cage bans on Washington’s November 2011 ballot and Oregon’s November 2012 ballot.

Throughout the country, our efforts to expose and outlaw factory farming cruelty, and to increase public awareness of farm animal welfare, are meeting with success. This has goaded the industry to bolster the walls of its factories against efforts to ease the suffering of those within. In the scales of agribusiness logic, an inch or two of floor space in a metal cage weighs more than the pain of the bird who stands on it. But we know how valuable the life of that bird is. We know that each hen matters. And we know that each volunteer and each signature matters. This is a crucial moment. As the industry musters itself to resist our progress, we need the weight of every compassionate voice to urge our momentum forward. Right now, Farm Sanctuary volunteers are on the ground in Washington, gathering thousands of signatures across the state, and we are sending even more activists starting next week. Please learn more about how you can help in Washington and Oregon and join us in this important work.

June 24, 2011

Could the 1977 VW van that carried Hilda (our first rescued animal) to safety and played a pivotal role in the creation of Farm Sanctuary make it across the U.S. after sitting idle for more than 15 years? That was a question on many people’s minds as we prepared for the Just Eats Tour, a cross country trip to explore vegan America that depended on our old van to bring us from New York to California.

The Just Eats Tour started in New York City, where we visited incredible vegan eateries, attended Farm Sanctuary’s 25th Anniversary Gala, and participated in the Veggie Pride Parade. We left the Big Apple on a rainy evening and headed toward Wilmington, DE. As we drove along the bumpy, potholed roads of New York and New Jersey, a projectile blew a hole in our driver’s side headlight and sent a chrome ring around the light flying. It was our first day on the road, we had more than 5,000 miles to go, and we already had a vehicular mishap. Would the old van make it?

Thankfully, the van kept rolling, even though it lost a few parts here and there. We also had to replace three tires. One blew out going 70 miles per hour on a hot Texas highway - it exploded, bending metal, dislodging our battery, and knocking out the tail lights. Although we were delayed, we continued on, and happily, after three weeks on the road, the van pulled into Orland, CA, in time for Farm Sanctuary’s annual Hoe Down. It was a beautiful event and the perfect conclusion to our cross -country exploration.

Besides the dependability of our old VW van, we were taken by the remarkable passion and diversity of America’s vegan food movement. We found vegans in urban and rural areas, representing all shapes and sizes, ethnicities and lifestyles. We met entrepreneurs, authors, academics, and spiritual and business leaders. We spoke with people who have been vegan for decades and others who just recently decided to forego animal products. And we also met second and third generations of vegans. The vegan movement is bringing people of different ages and various backgrounds together around common interests.

Restaurants are catching on, experimenting with vegan dishes and reporting strong demand. They have been impressed by how enthusiastic and appreciative vegan customers are to see plant-based options. The vegan community is helping these businesses to make plant foods more widely available, providing menu suggestions, product recommendations, and even recipes and food preparation tips. And with more vegan options available, omnivores are increasingly choosing them. Everywhere we went across the U.S., we saw that the vegan movement is vibrant and growing!

May 25, 2011

Starting at Farm Sanctuary’s 25th Anniversary Gala, which was held at Cipriani’s on Wall Street in New York City on May 14, I’ve been on the Just Eats Tour, driving the original VW van that launched Farm Sanctuary in 1986 across the U.S. to celebrate our 25thanniversary and to explore vegan America.

In this van, we rescued our first animal, Hilda, a downed sheep who had been left on a pile of dead animals behind Lancaster Stockyards in Pennsylvania. In the early days of Farm Sanctuary, we also raised funds to support our work by selling veggie hot dogs out of this van at Grateful Dead concerts. Getting the old VW on the road again has been a blast, and we’re meeting so many amazing people along the way. We’ve found vegan food and vegan advocates in every corner of the country, in both rural and urban settings.

The factory farming industry is deeply entrenched in our food culture and economic system, but change is afoot. More and more consumers are seeking to reconnect with the sources of their food and to eat well, impulses that inevitably lead to a rejection of factory farming. An entrepreneurial spirit is flourishing in this burgeoning food movement, and new, socially responsible enterprises are sprouting up in agricultural areas. Driving through Iowa recently, we saw dozens of windmills towering above cornfields, and we learned that Iowa produces more wind energy than any other state. Perhaps wind can help disburden us of our reliance on fossil fuels and corn-based ethanol!

I am writing now from Omaha, NE, staying with the amazing cookbook author and chef Isa Chandra Moskowitz, who welcomed us with an incredible vegan brunch, featuring French toast and “sausage”. From here, we’ll be continuing our westward adventure, eventually arriving in Orland, CA, for Farm Sanctuary’s Country Hoe Down on June 4 and 5. If you’re planning to be in northern California then, we’d love to see you there! In the meantime, please check out www.justeatstour.org.

Farm Sanctuary is the nation's leading farm animal protection organization. Since incorporating in 1986, Farm Sanctuary has worked to expose and stop cruel practices of the "food animal" industry ... read more.

Making Hay with Gene Baur features personal blogs from Farm Sanctuary President & Co-founder Gene Baur, as well as other entries focused on Farm Sanctuary’s advocacy efforts and the multiple ways that you can get involved and make a difference for farm animals.

Gene grew up in Hollywood, California and worked in commercials for McDonald's and other fast food restaurants. He adopted a vegan lifestyle in 1985, and today, he campaigns to raise awareness about the negative consequences of industrialized factory farming and our cheap food system. He lives in Washington, DC and is the co-founder and president of Farm Sanctuary. Read more.